Not every Pontiac Firebird made in the 1970s was black and gold. Sorry to break it to you, but you can put up your fake Burt Reynolds ‘stache and cowboy hat…it’s kind of creepy, to be honest. In fact, there were four trim levels: base, Esprit, Formula and Trans Am, and while everybody and their mother knows what a T/A is all about, the others are kind of left in the dust. Ok, maybe not an Esprit painted brown…The Rockford Files saved some of those cars.

A second-gen Firebird can be an absolute hoot to have fun with. Pontiac hadn’t completely abandoned horsepower in the Seventies, and fought tooth-and-nail to keep what little they could going strong, and the Firebird did the best job of keeping the faith. The 400 mill was still available, the look was still hot, and when you booted the long pedal on the right, you still got plenty of torque. It might not have been the same kind of lunacy that had been going strong in 1970, or even 1974 with the Super Duty cars, but compared to what else was for sale in ’76, you could do a lot worse for yourself.

This particular 1976 Formula is packing the 400 and an automatic, and for an “on the cheap” car, it looks pretty well sorted. A good cleaning here, some replacement interior bits and trim there, but there is only one thing that is keeping the car from being a drive anywhere kind of deal: the exhaust. The seller mentions “the drop out headers”, which we think was meant to say that the headers have been removed. Easy enough fix to get a driver-quality Firebird Formula back on the road, isn’t it? Four grand gets the car if you don’t want to haggle, and you’ll be out a few hundred for pipes.

Craigslist Link: 1976 Pontiac Firebird Formula 400